Wire clamps have been used with wire bonders to pull wires from bonds after the bonds have been made on semicnductor chips. The bonding wire is very fine, of the order of 10 mils or less. Thus, the wire is very easily broken if subjected to shock and other forces. It is desirable, therefore, that such shocks and forces be minimized or eliminated if at all possible.
A wire clamp previously used on a wire bonder is of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,672,556. This wire clamp is disclosed as having two relatively shiftable jaws, a solenoid which attracts an armature, the latter having a projection which engages a screw on the end of one of the jaws to cause the jaw to move toward and engage the opposite jaw to thereby close the jaws to engage or clamp a wire therebetween. The armature impacts the core of the solenoid when the jaws are closed and this impact is transmitted as a shock through the support for the wire clamp and to the capillary which feeds the wire to a bonding tool. This shock occurs when the bonding tool is, in fact, bonding the wire to a terminal point on a semiconductor chip. This shock, in travelling through the capillary end of the tool is oftentimes sufficient to cause the wire to break because the wire is of such small diameter. When this occurs, the bond is defective and must be redone to avoid a defective component. The cause of this defect is, of course, the impact which is transmitted to the capillary holding the wire at the bond point during a bonding operation. It has been recognized, therefore, that this impact must be eliminated to thereby eliminate the possibility of wire breakage. A need has, therefore, arisen for an improved wire clamp which operates in a manner which does not produce a shock when the jaws of the wire clamp are closed so that the wire can be clamped properly without affecting the wire at the bond point.